With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, I wanted to know how a Christian single guy handles this holiday. Is he sad? Depressed? Happy? Mad? I wanted the inside scoop!
Thankfully, I was able to squeeze in a quick interview with a guy friend of mine.
I came up with a few questions, sent them his way, and this is what he had to say. Be prepared to be encouraged and challenged all at the same time.
Q: How do you handle Valentine’s Day?
A: Sometimes Valentine’s Day stinks. On the day when it seems like every other person I know has that “special someone” in their life, there I sit, alone. It can be disheartening. But I always try to do two things.
First, I try to remember what Valentine’s Day is about—love. But not just our love toward one another. This time of year is one of the best times to remember what Christ has done for all of us in dying on the cross! John 15:13 really says it perfectly: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” The first way I suppress the “woe is me” feeling is to focus on what Christ has done and be thankful for His ultimate sacrifice of love.
Then I do my best to focus on others.
I find ways to make the day special for close friends and family. Maybe it’s a text or email, maybe a box of chocolates or a phone call. When we focus on other people, it can do wonders at taking the edge off of our own feelings because we’re not focused on ourselves.
Neither of these methods is foolproof, but it’s something that can bless others (and be festive) on a day when it’s easy to mope around.
Q: How do you stay focused and joyful as a single?
A: Realizing that God is using this time in my life to hone me, show me areas in which I need to grow, and focusing on doing the “next step” is how I stay focused. At times being joyful is just plain hard. One thing that really helps me in this area is having friends and family members whom I can talk with about anything (especially if they’re single, too, and spiritually mature).
They’ll listen to all my moaning and grumbling and huffing and puffing. They might even sympathize a little bit with me. But then they’ll give me the truth that God is using this time in my life to grow me closer to Him and those around me and that He has my future already mapped out much better than anything I could imagine.
When I stay consistent with my Bible reading, listen to my parents’ advice and wisdom, and surround myself with grounded friends, it improves my focus and joyfulness in a huge way.
Q: What’s your advice and encouragement to us as single girls?
A: Two things.
Use the time you have now to serve the Lord and make memories with those around you! There’s not really a better time in your life to learn to serve and to enjoy doing it with those God has placed in your life. If you don’t make memories now and just breeze through life, ten years from now you’ll look back and think, If only I had used the time I had then to the fullest .
Look ahead to the future!
I was recently reading a friend’s blog who was talking about Valentine’s Day. When she began to think ahead to what this year might hold (instead of becoming bogged down in what she didn’t have), it completely changed her outlook. That’s what I like to do—make memories during this season while looking forward excitedly to what my future holds.
Don’t forget Hebrews 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
Let’s all run this part of life (when we’re single) with purpose and perseverance.
Because face it: The possibility of us being single forever is very slim (when it feels like singleness is your never-ending future, just take a breath and dive into God’s Word). And when we wake up married, we’re going to be grateful we practiced running our life race well early on, because that race carries over into married life, too!
That wraps up the questions and answers from our anonymous Christian guy friend.
I hope you were challenged and encouraged by his open and honest answers. I’d love to ask you two of the questions that I asked him. I can’t wait to read your answers in the comments section below.
How do you handle Valentine’s Day?
How do you stay focused and joyful as a single?
